Increasingly our lives are lived online. The effectiveness of our work and richness of our relationships are influenced by our ability to communicate and interact with people through technology – which can either enhance or hinder our efforts.

Like a child learning a new language, the mechanisms of social networking and online collaborative tools become absorbed into our communications on a daily basis.

This happens almost without us realizing that our language or at least the way we use language is changing.

A new and contemporary guidebook is needed for those wanting to make the most out of our new global society that is connected and interacting through information technology.

This text is ideal for personal growth as well as classroom learning or book reading discussion groups.

Although the text has a masterful and comprehensive focus on the topic of “distance learning” — the fact is that we’re all communicating over a distance, whether across town or across the world. We’re all learning (e.g. receiving and processing information). So, for this reason, Golden Climate is a text for everyone.

However, a quick glance at the table of contents reveals that the book is deeper, broader, and more transcendent than previous texts on this topic. Rather than focusing simply on the intricacies of using Skype or how to make use of services like GoToMeeting, the book covers the additional internal tools we need to be effective communicators and listeners.

Golden Climate is the missing manual for anyone dependent upon online collaborative tools. It’s not enough to now how to technically make tools work, one needs to be proficient and using them to their fullest, and this is really not a question of technology but a matter of having the experiential tools for effective engagement with others.

Golden Climate is an exceptional handbook and reference guide for instructors working in any context — with students on the other side of the classroom or on the other side of the world. However, it’s really much more than that. It’s an invaluable resource for anyone engaged in business or a non-profit organization wanting to reduce effort and increase impact.

If you’re an administrator in a K-12 or Higher Education institution, you may want to consider providing Golden Climate as a required reading for your instructors who are orienting themselves to the 21st century global classroom. Doing so, can raise the overall watermark of instructional excellence in your educational institution.

Golden Climate is written in a style that makes it fun and interesting to read. Although it’s written to and for educators, the concepts are easily transferable to those in non-profit work, business owners, or anyone else.

If you’re a writer or blogger looking for a muse or source of ideas that you can write about, this book is a great tool to get your mind going on the topic of how communications and technology are transforming and changing our lives. Of course, remember to provide attribution and credit to the book and its authors.